Graydon Morris and Emma Grace Hurley take USATF 10 mile titles at a record Cherry Blossom
El Youssfi beat Morris by a second and Asayech Ayichew won the women's race in 50:37, as a record 20,079 finished Phil Stewart's last race as director.
Photograph: Ridouane Harroufi winning the 2009 Cherry Blossom Ten Mile in Washington, D.C., by Ruzbeh Akbar, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsThe 53rd Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile was run in Washington on Sunday morning, sunny and a little chilly, with a record 20,079 finishers. It was also the USATF 10 Mile Championships, and the last race for Phil Stewart after 35 years as director. The race has been named after him; his deputy, Rob Wolfe, takes over.
Mohammed El Youssfi of Morocco won the men's race by one second from Graydon Morris, who ran 46:18 for the national title and the bigger cheque: $13,000 in prize and bonus money. Twenty-five men were within two seconds at 5 km, and 10 km went by in 29:21. Thailand's Kieran Tuntivate was third in 46:32, with Cole Sprout and Aidan Reed next and Canada's Moh Ahmed sixth in 46:39 on his first ten-miler.
Ethiopia's Asayech Ayichew won the women's race in 50:37, closing her last kilometre in 2:58, from Uganda's Joy Cheptoyek, 50:41. Emma Grace Hurley was third in 50:42 for her first national title, two weeks after setting a national record for 8 km on the road. Weini Kelati, 50:46, and Karissa Schweizer, 50:55 in the longest race of her life, were the next Americans.
No records fell. All four winners set personal bests. Twenty thousand people ran ten miles past the monuments, and the man who built the thing ran his last one in charge. That is a good day's work for a road race.
Sources: Race Results Weekly via RunBlogRun; LetsRun; Cherry Blossom Ten Mile.
